


For the Love of a Doctor

by Arlome



Category: Poldark (TV 2015), Poldark - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, somewhat smutty in places
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 09:48:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15704778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arlome/pseuds/Arlome
Summary: Doctor Dwight Enys, as he is perceived by the women in his life.





	For the Love of a Doctor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dismiss_your_fearsx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dismiss_your_fearsx/gifts).



> So this was brewing in my unfinished works folder for the last couple of months, waiting to be finished. I finally decided to get a grip and make an effort and write the bloody thing.
> 
> Dedicated to my dear friend Megan (rather-impertinent on Tumblr), who's been having one of those days.
> 
> Hope you enjoy this!

1.  
Joan Pascoe is a sensible girl, by all accounts. She's not too pretty to think too highly of herself, but neither is she plain; with a pale, pointed face, both eyes and hair dark and rich – her features are as sensible as the girl herself. She is an educated young woman of three and twenty, from a good family, and has a small personal fortune that might tempt any practical man to think of her as a suitable choice of a wife. She can have her pick of men of her own station, but her eye is set on just the one. 

The handsome, freshly minted physician is much to be admired. The strength of his conviction, his youth and vigour, his eagerness and zest are all qualities that do him credit. Joan admires the brilliance of his ever-working mind, the fierceness of his feeling towards the less deserving, and the utmost desire to be of service to those who are in great need of it. When she walks with him through town, and her sleeve accidentally brushes against his, a sudden thrill rises in her breast; but Joan Pascoe is nothing if not principled, so she throttles the little voice inside her innards that's telling her to _draw him in,_ to _let her interest be shown,_ to _allow more liberties for the sake of the future,_ and withdraws a tad deeper into herself; ever the epitome of virtue and good sense.

Joan Pascoe is a sensible girl, so it comes as no surprise to her that the handsome young man, whose very image sets her maidenly heart racing, distances himself the moment he leaves her family's house. She knows that many lay claims to his time and attention, and she tries to think that his absence from their dinner table is due to the extremely long hours he's keeping, but deep in her heart she seems to know the truth. Dwight Enys is a passionate man in all of his affairs, both professional and personal. Dwight Enys is utterly dedicated to his work, often at the expense of his social life and society itself. Dwight Enys, though brilliant and outstanding, is not a practical man; at least, not in the way that counts.

Joan Pascoe is a sensible girl; _and sensible girls,_ she thinks dejectedly, as the painfully handsome face of the young doctor blossoms in her mind, _need practical men._

 

2  
She follows the doctor's progress with her enticing elfish eyes.

Sitting outside of her shabby cottage, she can see his striking figure astride a horse, no doubt going on his rounds. He touches his hand to his hat and smiles kindly at her as he passes by her hedge, and she wonders whether his hips would echo the riding movement they make now if she were to part her thighs for him. 

She thinks him as beautiful as an angel, no doubt closer to God than other mortals; his eyes clear as the heavens, with lashes long and fair, just like a maid's. His lips are plump, especially the lower one, and when he smiles, as he often does – almost always in embarrassment – they stretch broadly, to reveal the whitest teeth she's ever seen. Yes, no doubt, he _is_ an angel; and she thinks- rather sacrilegiously- that it is _him_ she will envision when she cries the name of the Lord in climax. Alone at night, she lies awake – Mark is ever at the mine – and thinks of him as she pleasures herself. She wonders if the Good Doctor knows of that little mysterious bud of flesh, the elusive button, that is the key to women's desire. 

When she does eventually capture the young surgeon in her enticing net, she’s pleased to learn that his attentions are boyish, eager, and ready to please; the lack of experience compensated nicely by an extensive knowledge of anatomy. But at night, by the burning embers of his fire, on the frayed carpet he got as payment for curing a nasty bout of gout, there is nothing remotely boyish in the way he rolls his hips against hers as they move together, or in the way his hand pushes her knee upwards. She comes apart beneath him, the scent of his freshly scrubbed body in her nostrils, his chest hairs tickling her soft nipples as she arches into him. His enthusiasm to please her heartening and addictive.

If she were to die tomorrow, she thinks as she lies in his arms in post-coital bliss, it would have all been worth it. 

 

3.  
Ross’ doctor friend is a strange young man, she thinks.

She meets him in his professional capacity for the first time a few days after Julia is born. There’s pain, and slightly more bleeding than she would like, and she makes the mistake of cringing with unease in Ross’ presence, so he insists upon calling his army friend, despite her strongest objections.

The young man -eager, bright, and handsome in a very _fresh_ way – arrives about an hour after he’s summoned, apologizing profusely for his unspeakable tardiness. He was delayed in the village by a poor fisherwoman with an ailing child, and he could not go on his way without examining the poor boy. She blanches and stutters an apology for having dragged the surgeon from people who are in real need of him for something so trivial as mere pain after childbirth when the young man in question takes her hand between his and presses it kindly. His hands are dry and warm, and much softer than those of her husband. She takes a deep breath and settles against the pillows in her bed.

“Now, Mrs Poldark,” the doctor says, smiling gently, “tell me what ails you.”

She manages to stammer out a brief account of the birth and even succeeds to cough out the reason for his visit, under his encouraging nodding. When the hasty explanation is over, young Dr Enys sits beside her on the bed and begins rolling up his sleeves with a look of concentrated determination. Her eyes widen almost comically.

“I would like to examine you now, Mrs Poldark,” he explains at the change in her demeanour, “I must ascertain for myself that all is healing properly.”

“Oh,” she mutters and looks at the doctor’s pale fingers, “oh…must you really, Dr Enys?”

He stops in the act of rolling the sleeve on his left arm and drops both hands in his lap. With a shy, but certain smile that surely made the young maidens of London cry for their smelling salts, he clears his throat and shrugs.

“Allow me to tell you a little something about myself, Mrs Poldark,” he begins quietly as if letting her in on a major secret, “I have very peculiar notions about the practice of medicine – I think one must _practice_ it, you see. I know that most doctors, once a woman is delivered of her child, would not dream of an examination, but I am not one of them. If I am to help you, I must first understand what it is I am trying to fix. But fear not, my dear Madam, I shall be discretion and gentleness itself.”

She nods absentmindedly and lies on her back, stiff as a rod, and stares at the canopy above her head. The young doctor moves closer to her legs and lifts the hem of her nightgown with great care. His fingers grasp her knees gently, and he pushes her thighs apart – not unlike the way Ross does when he slides into her in passion – and she blushes all the way to the copper roots of her hair. The touch of his fingers is light, gentle, but she hisses in discomfort all the same and the surgeon apologizes and lowers the nightgown past her knees.  
He takes out an unsoiled cloth from his satchel and wipes his hands clean.

“Nothing to be worried about, Mrs Poldark,” he declares, letting down the sleeves of his shirt and shrugging his coat back on, “but I’d advise plenty of rest and drinking willow bark tea four times a day until you are feeling restored.”

He stands smiling and talking to her in her bedroom with such an air of ease that she grows bolder and more relaxed in his presence and even begins to allow a small smile of her own.

“Dr Enys, “she says, blushing comely despite herself and her newly minted resolve to be at ease,” I believe, under the circumstances, that you and I should probably address one another by our christen names, wouldn’t you agree?”

He laughs openly, acknowledging both the jest and the act of intimacy, and she is once more struck with how young and handsome the doctor is. _Beware, o maiden hearts of Truro,_ she muses impishly when he nods, and a lock of golden hair falls into his eye.

“Will you stay and eat with us, Dwight?” she asks, the question still somewhat timid, despite their newfound friendship.

But then he smiles with his entire soul, and his eyes crinkle good-naturedly and all her inhibitions are dead and gone.

“It would be my pleasure, Demelza,” he says and shrugs off his coat a second time.

And she knows that she’s made a friend for life.

 

4.  
Surgeon calls on her again today. 

He checks up on her regularly, God bless him and his golden heart; always kind, always eager to help. He enters her house full of gentle assuredness, commanding respect and awe in his usual unassuming way; even bypassing the impressive stony barrier that is her father’s dour countenance. 

As is her custom when he calls, she sits on the edge of her bed, and he kneels before her feet – like a servant, or a lover - and lifts her skirt and petticoat up her legs, pushing them upwards towards her thighs. Her heart catches and flutters in her maidenly chest at the graze and pressure of his skilled fingers against her knee, and she wishes, _prays,_ that someday – someday – those fingers would grasp her thighs in passion, leaving impressions on her skin. She blushes at her infatuated audacity, looking away swiftly, but Surgeon notices and raises a cool hand to her burning face – first the cheek, then the forehead, then the throat- and her heart is close to bursting with emotions previously unknown to her.

He confines her to her bed – _you must rest and recover from this fever, Rosina_ – and orders her worried mother to make tea and add some gin to it, before taking his leave with kind words and even a kinder smile, and a promise to return in two days to see how she’s faring.

And as she lies in her sickbed and weeps with unrequited love, and unused passion, she cannot help but think that the Good Doctor cannot provide her with the best cure to her aggressively cruel illness; 

Himself. 

 

5.  
She only has him for one night.

Their lovemaking – sweet kisses and shy touches, fragments of a love affair before he is snatched away so cruelly into active duty – is brief and hasty, coloured by urgency and desperate passion. 

Her fingers tremble at his temple, mouth shakes against his own, her sighs broken in his ears. He kisses her hard and long, swiping his tongue across her lower lip, drawing it into his mouth, his long fingers brushing her nipple on their way down her body and she chokes, gasping for air at his ardent touch.

Her virginal blood stains his thighs, tints the white sheets and her so-called reputation, ruining her for other men. Where is Lord Coniston now? Where is Unwin? Where are all the countless eligible peacocks that her uncles insist on pushing on her when she surrenders her innocence to the loving embrace of a penniless country doctor?

She laughs at the sense of freedom as her life-long shackles disintegrate to the sounds of broken exhalations, and she cries and sighs at the intensity of the feelings that threaten to overwhelm her. She has never _felt_ this much before.

“Oh, my love,” he gasps in her ear, his chest slick with her sweat, “oh, my only love.”

And she echoes his plea and repeats his cries and finds a peaceful haven in his arms, even if it is only for a fleeting while.

And later as she lies awake in her large bed, breathing unevenly, staring at the waning moon in the sombre night sky; her dreams – the fleeting images she’s able to grasp when her eyes flutter shut in exhaustion – are haunted by his eyes, his mouth, the hardness of his torso against her softness –

He is hers, and she is his, and the rest of the world may fade into blissful oblivion.

 

6.  
On the way home, back from the traditional Sunday walk to Hendrawna Beach, she stumbles and falls, scrapping her knee raw. She cries and cries, inconsolable and pain-full; unable – or, rather, unwilling – to rise from the dirty ground. Her sister runs to her side, caresses some stray curls with sticky little hands, and bends at the waist to deposit a big, wet kiss on her sweaty forehead.

“Here, Meli,” her sister says softly, “all better.” 

She hears rushed footsteps and a deep, “What’s this, then?”, before she’s being picked up-up-up into strong, loving arms. She snuggles deep into the familiar scent of wool, crisp winter air, and lavender, and brings her little hands to grasp around the all too well-known neck, _and sniffles._

“Did you have a bit of a tumble, my love?” he asks, and suddenly, the pain seems to abate, and she feels warm and tired. She nods groggily into the soft cravat and snuggles into the warm body that holds her.

“Well, let us get home, and I will see what I can do,” the placating tone is so full of love, and compassion, and, well, _him,_ that she finds herself laying her head on a shoulder, already on the verge of dozing off, when he suddenly adds, almost mischievously, “but I think it’s nothing that a good helping of Mama’s hot chocolate can’t mend.”

And as she drifts off to light sleep, the pain in her knee nothing more than a soft throb by now, Meliora thinks that when she grows up and becomes a fashionable young lady, she’ll only marry a doctor, as kind and good as her beloved Papa.


End file.
